Title hopes fading as Yale beats Football

The Quakers fell to 2-2 and fifth place in the Ivy League as Yale squeaked out a 23-19 victory. NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- With three weeks to play in the 1999 Ivy League football season, there are still four teams tied for first place with only one loss. Penn, however, is no longer one of them. After dropping a key league contest to Yale, 23-19, before 20,762 at the Yale Bowl on Saturday, the Quakers fell into fifth place, a game behind the leaders. In snapping a seven-year losing streak to Penn, Yale (6-1, 4-1 Ivy League) won its sixth straight on the season and kept itself in the Ivy title hunt, tied for first with Harvard, Cornell and Brown. Penn, meanwhile, dropped to 2-2 in the league (3-4 overall), and is in need of lots of help to climb back into the title chase. As often happens in a game where both offenses stagnant in the red zone -- the teams combined for seven field goals -- the winning play was the lone touchdown scored in the second half. With Penn's defense doing a good job of clogging the middle of the field, Yale's mobile quarterback, Joe Walland, got around the right side, picked up a key downfield block from wide receiver Jake Fuller and ran untouched into the end zone. Walland's 29-yard scamper for a touchdown with 6 minutes, 41 seconds to play was the knockout punch in what was a tough contest between two evenly matched teams. Walland set up his own touchdown run by scrambling for 18 yards on a draw up the middle on the previous play. For the day, the senior carried the ball 15 times for 57 yards, a number that would have been much higher if he hadn't been sacked for a loss on four occasions. "It almost seemed anticlimactic as both teams were battling so much back and forth, to have a quarterback scramble for 50-something yards," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "I'd much rather see a deep pass or a tailback run it down the field." Yale's long-distance touchdown run, however, was not representative of the rest of the game. For most of the 60 minutes, the two offenses -- which combined for almost 800 yards of total offense -- marched themselves to within a few yards of the end zone, only to be turned away. The Elis had the ball first-and-goal four times in the first half, and posted just two field goals and a fumble until breaking through for a touchdown to make the score 13-10 with 1:50 to go in the first half. "I think we are a good goal-line defense because we feel a sense of urgency," Penn defensive lineman Mike Germino said. "Trying to get that defense to play all the time is what our problem is." Yale's goal-line offense was a far different attack from its regular sets. In the middle of the field, Yale had no problem running up the middle and throwing 10-yard out-passes to the receivers. But at the goal line, Walland consistently launched uncatchable fade patterns into the corner. "[Penn] is a great goal line team," Yale coach Jack Siedlecki said. "I talked to the kids about that and we talked about having to throw the ball down on the goal line and put the ball in the end zone. Both defenses rose up when they had to and forced a lot of field goals. Thank God we made them." Penn had red zone troubles of its own, leaving place kicker Jason Feinberg free to notch a school record-tying four field goals. The junior connected from 34 yards in the first half, and then added kicks of 38, 28 and 22 yards in the second half as Penn continually inched closer to the goal line but could not put one over. Feinberg might have had a fifth field goal, but up 7-3 in the first quarter Penn coach Al Bagnoli elected to go for it on fourth-and-one from the Yale 10. Tailback Kris Ryan's run up the middle came up short, handing the ball over to the Elis. While Yale could not capitalize on that miscue, Penn did turn a missed fourth down by the Elis into three points. On fourth-and-one from its own 43-yard line with 3:30 left in the third, Yale pitched the ball backwards to running back Rashad Bartholomew, who followed his fullback straight into a wall of Penn linemen and failed to get back to the line of scrimmage. Penn took the ball and marched to the Yale 11. This time Bagnoli elected to kick the ball on fourth-and-one. The made field goal put Penn ahead 16-13 as time ran out in the third quarter. Yale tied the game at 16 with 11:12 to play with a high floating field goal by Mike Murawczyk from 43 yards out. The drive was set up by a Ryan fumble on Penn's 28-yard line. Ryan had gotten the one yard needed for a first down on the play but was hit as he broke through a hole in the middle of the field. He coughed the ball straight into the air where a small horde of Elis linebackers were waiting to fall on it. "This year I've had a little trouble holding onto the ball," said Ryan, who rushed for 166 yards for the game. "I saw a hole and was just trying to take it. They just hit me and it came out." Penn answered right back. After a stellar kickoff return by an otherwise quiet Brandon Carson, Penn quarterback Gavin Hoffman connected with Rob Milanese over the middle for 33 yards. A 14-yard run by Ryan left Penn with first and goal at the six, but once again the offense hiccuped near the end zone and gained only one yard in three plays. Feinberg came in to hit the 22-yard field goal with 8:41 to play. That field goal would end the scoring for the Quakers. Hoffman got the ball back following Walland's winning run and made two first-down passes to get to the Yale 41 but was sacked on the next play for a loss of 10. After an incompletion on second down, Hoffman was hit as he threw a ball down the left sideline to a triple-covered Milanese on third down. The pass was intercepted by Todd Tomich and Penn's offense never saw the field again. Bartholomew took over from there and ran the ball through the middle of Penn's defense to run out the final three minutes of the game.

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